The present invention relates to a package for enclosing a plurality of sheets of material, such as a stack of x-ray film.
It is known to provide light tight packages for holding stacks of sheets of x-ray film or the like. Such film packages can be placed in magazines or cassettes having a spindle, and a leader on the package is attached to the spindle. Then the magazine or cassette is closed and the spindle rotated to strip the packaging material from the stack of sheets. Thereafter, the magazine is provided to an autoloader or other apparatus having a light tight compartment wherein the sheets can be removed seriatim for use. Alternatively, the package can be manually opened in a light tight environment and sheets removed and loaded into light tight cassettes of the kind used for making x-rays of patients. Packages and magazines of the kind described above are disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,019,849, issued May 28, 1991; in U.S. Pat. No. 5,048,686, issued Sep. 17, 1991; and in Italian Patent No. 1,062,043.
Leaders on packages of the kind mentioned above sometimes need to be relatively large in order to extend from the pouch portion of the magazine which holds the film sheets to the spindle of the magazine. Generally, the leaders are folded onto only one side of the package and may be secured to that side only by pressure sensitive tape, for example, as disclosed in the before-mentioned U.S. Pat. No. 5,048,686. While this arrangement works satisfactorily, it does leave a major portion of the leader unrestrained, especially along the side edges of the leader. As a result, the flap can be accidentally separated from the outer face of the package. Also, when the leaders are relatively long, it would be desirable to position portions of the leader on both the top face and bottom face of the package without unnecessarily complicating attachment of the leader to the faces of the package. Equipment used for loading stacks of film into a package may have a hopper got holding a stack of empty packages. With such equipment, it is desirable to have the leader securely attached to the pouch portion of the package.